There have been a number of attempts to prepare a synthetic product with the appearance of wood. The benefits of such a successful synthetic product would include, for example, the ability to mold the product using conventional molding techniques into the shape of the desired article. Otherwise, a wooden article has to be individually cut and shaped which is a time consuming and labor intensive practice. Molding operations can be substantially automated and the resulting materials are often lighter and of acceptable strength as compared to the wood product.
However, it has proven difficult to prepare stains, dyes, paints or the like which can be easily coated onto synthetic resin materials. Much effort has been made with respect to the compatibility between the synthetic resin material itself and the stain used thereon. Other attempts at preparing stainable or paintable synthetic resin products, have included loading the resin material with a high amount of filler material. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,480,061 discloses a synthetic resin material with a high amount of loading. Because of the high loading amount, the filler material is exposed at the surface of the product, therefore apparently, readily accepting of a stain. A drawback with this type of product is that the high amount of loading increases the weight, brittleness and expense of the product and also decreases its ability to be easily molded by conventional techniques.
An example of preparing a synthetic resin with a compatibilizing layer is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,252,640. A liquid coating is applied to a wood product wherein the wood grain pattern is applied in ink to the product. The ink composition is acceptable by the liquid coating layer.
Another compatibilized product is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,935,329 wherein a rubber product such as an styrene/butadiene rubber is provided With components that will cause the rubber to be compatible with a paint material. The rubber material includes a cross-linkable rubber material, a polymeric stiffening agent, a plasticizing agent, and optionally, an accelerating agent, a curing agent, an activating agent or a filler material.
A need exists for a synthetic resin which can readily accept a standard stain, such as a commonly and commercially available wood stain or the like. The resin would desirably not have a large amount of filler material therein, such that the resulting material retains the benefits of the resin itself without an increase in brittleness and a decrease in the ability to mold or prepare products from the resin material according to conventional techniques. It is also desirable that the resin material will accept a stain without a need to provide compatibilizers between the resin and the staining agent itself. That is, the resin material once prepared should readily accept a common wood stain.